Blaut's theory IN CONTRAST to Jared Diamond??? BLASPHEMY!

Could it be possible that there are other theories to the development of mankind and the success of Eurasia. Check out the theories of James Blaut! Do you agree? Did religion cause animal domestication?

On the brink of global revolution?

Global warming. Hardly any winter. Unpredictable weather. Disastrous hurricanes. Wild tornados. Devastating tsunamis. Polar ice caps and glaciers melting. Sustainable Development. Nuclear power. Wind power. Solar power. Hydro-electric power. Alternative fuels...

Could the human population be on the brink of another historical revolution likened to the Neolithic Revolution? The Neolithic revolution absolutely changed the existence and impact of humans on the world. No longer needing to spend our time and energy looking for food to sustain the small population, men(and women!) could be creative, build massive structures, create complex governments with bureaucracy, devote time and energy to worshipping gods and goddesses, building empire, etc. WHAT A REVOLUTION!!!

THEN, several hundreds of years later....the Industrial Revolution!! Trains, cars, factories, steam engines, gasoline power cars, electricity, radios, computers, televisions, more cars, weapons, video recorders, records, cds, dvds, ipods, etc. etc. etc. -- a continuing revolution!!

But, now, are we on the brink of a global changing revolution that our neolithic and technological revolution has created? More and more in the news, in the movies (An Inconvenient Truth), in the Congress, and in the U.N., there are discussions about the human impact on the environment. What we do today will impact the planet 100 years from now. It seems that FINALLY, our governments are ready to address this issue! China, an emerging global power, is acknowledging the rampant pollution in its own country as it goes through its own industrial revolution today.
There is even discussion about "sustainable clothing" in future fashion developments!

So this lead me to an earth-altering question: are we on the verge of another tremendous revolution will be as significant as the Neolithic revolution? Will it take thousands of years or a hundred years or 20 years?

Retrieving Buddhist texts -- more to the story

Today we have been discussing the impact that individuals have on our understanding of history. Our understanding, however, is also derived in forms other than a traveler's account. We know that Fa-hsien left his "Records of Buddhistic Kingdom" as a history of Gupta India. However, he had an even larger impact by bringing back to China the texts of Mayahana and Hinayana Buddhism from India. Well, should we say a larger impact or larger challenge? Now that the sutras are in China, what do you do with them - they are in a different language!

It was up to the Chinese Buddhist monk, Kumarajiva, to translate the sutras into Chinese. This was an incredible undertaking because the sutras are derived from not only a different language, but a different culture. "Particularly vexing was the need to introduce unfamiliar concepts a the very heart of Buddhism. Just as Christians would later agonize over ways of translating "God" into Chinese, Buddhists racked their brains over works like "Nirvana." (A Brief History of Chinese Culture by Conrad Shirokauer, p. 88)

Monks eventually took up the practice of transliteration "to employ Chinese characters to approximate the sound rather than the meaning of the original word....the results were apt to be unwieldy and sometimes even misleading, since in relatively modern times the Chinese reader has found it difficult to divorce the characters from their meanings" (Shirokauer, 88).

So, when we discuss the impact of individuals, it also leads to the idea of syncretism as society tries to understand and to adopt cultural aspects from other places. The excerpts above simply gives a glimpse about what parts of the process of syncretism are and how these individuals have shaped their own history and our understanding of their history.

Does history matter?

There has been very interesting conversation in our nation recently about our educational system and what subjects are more important compared to other subjects. The question seems to really be: what does our culture value in terms of what a well-rounded person really is? In terms of history (my favorite subject, of course), does history matter? Do we need history in our lives? Is there anything to learn from history? Does our national experience show a lack of understanding of history? Should we study the big picture or is it the methodology of history that is important? Does the history of Greece really matter to us in the long run?

How do we understand Asian belief systems from a western perspective?

One of the biggest hurdles that we have to get over in world history is the way we Westerners view the world. Westerners like to categorize ideas, beliefs, ethics, etc. in nice, neat, little boxes. Unfortunately, the rest of the world and, for that matter, history itself, does not fit into nice neat little boxes of right and wrong, left and right, up and down, etc. As world history scholars, it is our quest to look at shades of gray and to appreciate and understand our differences. History and knowledge is an evolution of adaptations to situations over time. The examples that we have been focusing in class are the belief systems of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism to name a few. Can we fit those beliefs into nice, neat little boxes that Westerners can understand or should we just understand the basic beliefs and be content with that?

Welcome!

Hello, scholars! Welcome to my blog! This is a new adventure for me and therefore a new adventure for you, too! This site is a place to discuss the 6 themes of AP World History as it applies to our topics at hand. Currently, we are discussing the ancient religions and how they spread and syncretize around the world.